Shooting tragedy in Alex Salmond's biography

A NEW biography of Alex Salmond will cast light on a family tragedy by revealing that the First Minister's high-achieving grandfather shot himself almost 70 years ago.

Salmond has never spoken publicly about his mother's father, William Milne, who died in 1941. He has spoken fondly on many ocassions about his memories of his paternal grandfather, Sandy Salmond, a plumber who stirred his early Nationalist feelings by teaching him about Scottish history while they walked around his home town of Linlithgow.

Fascinating details about Milne, the father of Salmond's late mother Mary, have been unearthed by David Torrance, the author of Salmond: Against the Odds, to be published next month.

After graduating, Milne became a classics master at Bo'ness Academy, where he stayed for 19 years. Before taking over as rector at Linlithgow Academy in 1929. In 1937 he was elected to the Linlithgow Town Council as a Unionist (or Conservative).

But just over two years later, when Salmond's mother Mary was 19, Milne took his own life. The West Lothian Courier reported: "On going to school before the usual hour of nine o'clock, a cleaner found the dead body of Mr Milne lying on the floor of his room in a pool of blood with wounds in the head and body, and a firearm lying nearby."

• Salmond: Against the Odds, published by Birlinn, will be serialised in Scotland on Sunday and The Scotsman.